Watchr provides a normalised API the file watching APIs of different node versions, nested/recursive file and directory watching, and accurate detailed events for file/directory creations, updates, and deletions.

Usage

Complete API Documentation.

There are two concepts in watchr, they are:

• Watcher - this wraps the native file system watching, makes it reliable, and supports deep watching
• Stalker - this wraps the watcher, such that for any given path, there can be many stalkers, but only one watcher

The simplest usage is:

// Import the watching library
var watchr = require('watchr')

// Define our watching parameters
var path = process.cwd()
function listener(changeType, fullPath, currentStat, previousStat) {
    switch (changeType) {
        case 'update':
            console.log(
                'the file',
                fullPath,
                'was updated',
                currentStat,
                previousStat
            )
            break
        case 'create':
            console.log('the file', fullPath, 'was created', currentStat)
            break
        case 'delete':
            console.log('the file', fullPath, 'was deleted', previousStat)
            break
    }
}
function next(err) {
    if (err) return console.log('watch failed on', path, 'with error', err)
    console.log('watch successful on', path)
}

// Watch the path with the change listener and completion callback
var stalker = watchr.open(path, listener, next)

// Close the stalker of the watcher
stalker.close()

More advanced usage is:

// Create the stalker for the path
var stalker = watchr.create(path)

// Listen to the events for the stalker/watcher
stalker.on('change', listener)
stalker.on('log', console.log)
stalker.once('close', function (reason) {
    console.log('closed', path, 'because', reason)
    stalker.removeAllListeners() // as it is closed, no need for our change or log listeners any more
})

// Set the default configuration for the stalker/watcher
stalker.setConfig({
    stat: null,
    interval: 5007,
    persistent: true,
    catchupDelay: 2000,
    preferredMethods: ['watch', 'watchFile'],
    followLinks: true,
    ignorePaths: false,
    ignoreHiddenFiles: false,
    ignoreCommonPatterns: true,
    ignoreCustomPatterns: null,
})

// Start watching
stalker.watch(next)

// Stop watching
stalker.close()

npm

This project provides its type information via inline JSDoc Comments. To make use of this in TypeScript, set your maxNodeModuleJsDepth compiler option to 5 or thereabouts. You can accomlish this via your tsconfig.json file like so:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "maxNodeModuleJsDepth": 5
  }
}

Discover the release history by heading on over to the HISTORY.md file.

Discover how you can contribute by heading on over to the CONTRIBUTING.md file.

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Discover how you can contribute by heading on over to the CONTRIBUTING.md file.

Unless stated otherwise all works are:

and licensed under: